Jakarta. The Jakarta government will build over 20,000 new units of low-cost apartments for underprivileged people this year in various areas across the capital.

The government will build 57 blocks of 16-story so-called rusunawa towers and 35 blocks of five-story rusunawa towers, hosting a total of 20,188 units. They are targeted to be completed by 2017.

The apartments will be equipped with many facilities to allow tenants to make their own living from gardening, cultivating, entrepreneurship and fishery, the government said.

“The farmers [living at the rusunawa] could consume their own fish and vegetables, as well as selling them,” Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama said on Sunday at the Marunda Rusunawa in Cilincing subdistrict, North Jakarta.

In order to help the tenants, who mostly struggle to meet daily living expenses given their weak economic condition, the government will also establish stores selling nine basic commodities at discounted prices, Basuki said.

"For instance, one liter of rice could only cost Rp 7,000 [50 cents]. Sugar, cooking oil, chicken and beef would also be available cheaply,” the governor said.

Basuki also wants to relocate Jakartans living dangerously close to the city’s dams and rivers, as those are prone to floods, to the less-populated Thousand Islands archipelago off the coast of North Jakarta to live in low-cost apartments that will also be built this year.

“We will give Rp 10 million for those who deserve it so they can start their own fish or clam businesses. The profit will be split: 80 [percent] for them and 20 [percent] for the government. We will also help them with the [fish and clam businesses] maintenance and everything,” the governor added.

The poor can live in the apartments for as little as Rp 450,000 per month for one room in a tower with elevators and Rp 150,000 for buildings with no elevators (stairs only).